SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2021, EASTER AND THE END OF PASSOVER

 SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2021, EASTER AND THE END OF PASSOVER

Happy Easter and Happy Passover Friends!!  Happy Spring!!  Happy April!!!

With a few little things, winter is over.  Yes, my friends in South Dakota and the northern plains, you can get an occasional snowstorm yet (I remember one in early May when we visited family in Minnesota and we had to stop overnight because of the heavy wet snow).  

This might be about the best weather time in Texas - warm days (the mid-80s), and cool nights (upper 40s/lower 50s).  The Bluebonnets are out.  The flowering trees are getting started, the redbuds are mostly done.  The crepe myrtles have not started.  With the change to daylight savings time, soccer, softball, golf, and other activities are in full swing!! 

GARDENING

It is spring - maybe in by-gone-days (like teenage days), that my thoughts turned to being outdoors, playing kickball, softball, baseball, or even golf.  

“In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love…!” According to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet, springtime brings out the best in men as their thoughts turn to love. Oh yes!!!

But, I am young at heart (and I always think of love - maybe not the love that Alfred, Lord Tennyson was thinking of), but, I am sure on all accounts that I am no longer a “young man”.  (I guess I do have “fancies”)

Down inside me is the gardening gene.  My grandfather gardened in our backyard - and as a preschooler, I was his “helper”.  (Knowing my grandchildren, I know they want to help - like pulling weeds (or the fledgling tomatoes plants!!!).

My grandfather always planted radish seeds with the other plants - as radishes “popped” up first and you could see the row.  Also, down inside me is the chaos gene and the impatient gene.  I just didn’t want to take the extra time to lay out the rows in perfectly straight lines.  If I had a dirt clod, I worked around it.  My rows were “kind of” straight.  Those seed packages on how to plant things like lettuce said to “thin” the young plants so they are 3 inches apart (or some number), and I never liked throwing away ‘good’ plants (even though they would hog the sunlight and water and not share it with their kins-plants.).  

In an apartment that has a nice east view, I have a little patio with a four-foot wall.  I have a board (which I “savaged” from the dumpster a year ago) that is sagging a little.  I have my two tomato plants left over from last fall.  I have one tomato (which may be gone by the time this is published).  To have some green plants in my apartment, I saved these two tomato plants as houseplants over the winter - but they are on their last legs.  There are few green leaves, they have sapped the nutrients out of the soil and are just surviving.  But, time to move on.  

I have two other patio containers. I tried to grow Swiss Chard last fall and over the winter.  It always worked well in my raised bed garden “back home”, but I think the Texas statement of “don’t fence me in” must-have applied to them.  So, now, they have green bean plants - not so much because they are green beans - but because they grow quickly and look good on my patio walls.  And, for you gardeners out there, these are “bush” beans, not “pole” beans.  

If I keep watering and switching out the tomatoes I should have some minor, fresh produce at the end of May.  July and August are brutal for green, growing things in Central Texas (maybe I’ll have to move things inside during the days and outside at night!!!)

Yes, it is genetic to want to plant things.  I walked through a garden store last week and my mind was going wild - but knowing I have such limited space, I had to temper my expectations.

But, alas, the realization is dawning, that I just can’t do as much gardening as in the past.

EASTER/PASSOVER

For many people today is a special day.  

As a kid, we would go to an Easter Sunrise service.  Even in Iowa in April, mornings could be cold.  Of course, I (we - with my sister) couldn’t drive so (generally) Dad drove us.  There was the watching of the sunrise - following the scripture “ Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb.”  (How very early was it?)  

When I did singing as an adult, there were multiple Holy Week events that the choir was expected to attend.  We kidded each other and said we should have cots set up in the church basement!!!   But, if we sang for multiple Easter Sunday services, the church gave us breakfast in the basement in between services - yeehaw!!!

I know of people who are allergic to Easter Lilies, but I love having them decorating a church.  Even if you are not of a religious bend, Easter Lilies are bright and one of the special plants of spring.  

APRIL MEMORIES

April is so great after March.  March’s job (at least to me), is to clear out the winter - and it does - with winds, tornados, warm fronts followed almost immediately by cold fronts.  You may start the day with heat on, and end the day with air conditioning.  It seems as April is starting to balance things out a little.  The miseries of winter fly from our brains as a couple of warm afternoons in a row show up.  

April is so nice, you don’t even mind mowing the grass!!!  That might not be so true in June if there has been abundant rains and sunshine.  It seems like the grass can grow six inches overnight!!!  

I have an old joke - it used to take me an hour-and-one-half to mow the lawn, but I got a new mower and it only takes me 90 minutes now!!!  WOOOO!!!  (Don’t look at me like I’m dense!!!)

Up north, I waited for the lilacs, but they seemed to wait until the last week of April and into May - and disappeared way-too-quickly!!  I could sniff their fragrance.  There don’t seem to be lilacs in Texas.  It seems (and maybe it is just me), that Texas flowers can be stunning, but don’t have much fragrance.  

And, on that subject.  I don’t think I’ve had Covid-19, but one of the symptoms is loss of smell.  I think my smell is less than in the past.  It might be from aging, or from hormones.  I used to break out when using a white powder deodorant and now, that is the norm for me - no irritation.  (Am I more ph-balanced now?)

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ANOTHER RELATED TOPIC

Some writers talk about “mindfulness” - notice the trees, the flowers, the colors.  If you walk down the same street day after day, you should be mindful of the tiny changes.  

I really don’t remember that in my brain whatsoever!!!  If you asked me to describe a person that I know well (say LMG or TF), I’m not sure I could exactly say what they were wearing or other aspects of their appearance.  (Other than TF is mostly bald!!!).  I was with a friend the other day, and coming home, I tried to quiz myself on what she was wearing and I really didn’t know.  So, maybe you can be ‘mindful’, and I’m going to be ‘mindless’!!!  It's not that my brain isn’t spinning 100 miles an hour - but observations of the physical world are not at the forefront.  

I don’t think this is unique.  Let’s say you drive the same route almost every day - maybe 5 miles every day.  You know the route by heart.  You’ve been on that road a million times (okay, maybe not a million, but a lot).  Did you remember driving past the yellow house today?  You know - the yellow house that you always go by.  Were there any cars in the driveway today?  I did this with a group that met weekly and passed some of the same businesses I passed and they didn’t remember much better than I did.  

There is an experiment - where a masked person (not a COVID masked person) runs into a classroom and yells something and then leaves.  Then ask your students to describe what the person was wearing, what he or she yelled, how tall were they, etc.  I bet you can’t get all the descriptions right immediately.   In terms of eyewitnesses to the scene, we frequently come up short - unless we get “jogged” by something.  So, if somebody says “Levi blue jeans”, that might jog another person to say “And, the shirt was a pale yellow (or whatever).  (But, on the other hand, I can tell you about some computer code I programmed 25 years ago!!!)  

Memories can be sketchy!!!

SOME SELECTED “HOLIDAYS”

April 4th - National Tell a Lie day

I think the intent is to “tell a whopper” - not a “little white lie” - and might just be an extension of April Fool’s Day

April 5th - National Deep Dish Pizza Day

I used to like deep-dish pizza more (and still might have a preference that way).  I like bread - and deep-dish pizza has more bread!!!  I did get “in trouble” when I suggested to a friend that I liked the Hawaiian Pizza with pineapple.  The friend thought that was a disgusting arrangement.  I might just like the “meat lovers” pizza.  (Oh, while I’m at it - I like green peppers and green olives, onions, and red sauce.  I’m not all that fond of mushrooms or black olives.  Recently I was reading a menu where they didn’t have mushrooms but had mshrooms - I assumed they were just trying to shorten the list of ingredients!!!

April 6th - National Tartan Day

I have some Scottish ancestry and am (if you dig for it) listed on the Clan Moffet heritage page.  That reminds me that my next instrument is going to be the BAGPIPE!!!  WOOO!!!

April 7th - National Beer Day

I am not a huge drinker (yes, I still have two bottles of Lone Star Beer in my refrigerator left over from last summer) - and, almost never drink wine.  So, generally, if I “have to” have an alcoholic beverage, I’ll opt for beer.  At one point that was enough - but now there is such a beer explosion - ale, lager, pilsner, IPA, wheat, dark, red, microbreweries - that I really don’t know what is what.  

On a slightly related note, when I walk through the wine selection at the local HEB grocery store, there are MILLIONS of wines (okay, that is hype) - but how can you really tell one from another?

April 9th - National Unicorn Day!!!

“There were green alligators and long-necked geese, some Humpty back camels and some chimpanzees, Some cats and rats and elephants, but you never are going to find a unicorn.” (I think that is an Irish Rowers song - about Noah and the animals).

The website says “National Unicorn Day on April 9 is a day to celebrate the most popular mythical creature ever. Why? Because if we don’t take time out to celebrate a beautiful, horned, rainbow–printed mythical creature then we’re most definitely missing a trick. The unicorn is a symbol of happiness, fantasy, and wonder. It’s an icon of color, of childlike splendor and magic. They often make appearances on birthday cakes and children’s clothing, and let’s be honest quite a lot of us adults still dig them too."

(I have a note on my post-it wall “I am a unicorn, unique and special”!!!)

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MISCELLANEOUS

A friend posted this 

Ten Lessons for her kids:

• If you are thankful, show it

• If you love somebody, tell them

• If you are wrong, fess up

• If you are confused, ask a question

• If you are stuck, ask for help

• If you learn something, teach others

• If you made a mistake, apologize

• If you trip and fall, get back up

• If someone needs help, help them

• If you see wrong, take a stance to help out.

(I think those go for adults too!!!)

And, for my friends, if you see that I am wrong, let me know

If you see that I’m confused, help me

If I made a mistake, help me up

(And a lot more!!!)

Because LOVE WINS!!!

HUGS!!!

Kare